


pride and participles

by peachcitt



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Humor, Getting to Know Each Other, Tutoring, i will admit i have no idea what a participle is. and that's okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:22:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28749954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachcitt/pseuds/peachcitt
Summary: “What are you staring at?” Félix asked, eyes not leaving his book, and Chloe startled, eyes snapping back down to her textbook.“A lame jerk,” Chloe replied smoothly. “Thanks for asking. Oh, and by the way, what the hell is a participle?”“You’ve asked me that at least twelve timesthis week.”“And it makes less sense each time. Try harder.”
Relationships: Chloé Bourgeois/Félix Graham de Vanily
Comments: 5
Kudos: 27





	pride and participles

**Author's Note:**

> this was a request from goldensmilingbird on tumblr - hope you like it<3
> 
> without further ado, enjoy :)

Chloe glared hard at the textbook in front of her, dropping her pencil on the desk in a steady rhythm. She looked up at Félix, who was sitting in front of her and was reading one of those probably super boring old-timey books - the kind with sentences that lasted for paragraphs and where nothing in particular happens at all. 

Félix licked his finger, and then turned the page. Chloe dropped her pencil in the same steady rhythm.

It was so  _ quiet.  _ She felt like tearing her hair out and screaming just to get rid of the silence. Really, it was  _ utterly ridiculous  _ to be able to hear someone else’s breathing! To hear her  _ own  _ breathing! Unheard of.

“So,” she said, drawing out the vowel sound. Félix didn’t look up. “What do you think Adrien is doing?”

“Did you finish those practice questions?” he asked instead of answering, and Chloe slumped over on the table, dropping her forehead onto the page of her textbook.

This was torture. Absolute torture.

Her plan had been fool-proof - complain to Adrien about how hard of a time she was having in English, and then he would swoop in and offer to tutor her because he was so nice and gullible, and they would bond and laugh and ignore work, and then they would kiss. It was a perfect plan. 

What she hadn’t anticipated was Adrien’s face pinching up in that way it did when he was going to deliver bad news and say that he would actually be recording for that new animated superhero show for the next few weeks, so there was no way he would have any free time, sorry Chloe maybe next time. She  _ also  _ hadn’t anticipated Adrien bounding up to her the next day and asking if she remembered Félix - you know, his cousin that used to play with them when they were kids and was so cool and fun? - because he was in town and he was just  _ so  _ good at English because he lived in London and said that he would love to tutor her.

Right. Félix. The cool and fun cousin.

More like the gloomy  _ pain in the ass  _ cousin. Chloe had never liked him, and he’d always made it clear that he couldn’t stand her.

“The practice questions,” Félix reminded, and Chloe flicked her pencil at him.

“Jerk,” she said.

“Twerp,” he replied, and when she looked up, he still had his eyes glued to his stupid book. He licked his finger and turned to the next page.

  
  


\---

  
  


“You’re not even helping me!” Chloe exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air and shoving the textbook away from her. Félix did not look up from his book - a different one from the last time, despite the fact that it had only been a day. 

“I would help if you actually made an effort on the translation,” Félix replied coolly, and Chloe rolled her eyes. She made an effort. About two seconds of it, but effort all the same. Félix flicked his eyes up from his book to actually look at her, his cold gray eyes sending a chill down her spine. “If you try, I can actually do something about your mistakes.”

“I’m trying,” Chloe said, despite the fact that she wasn’t. He raised his eyebrows at her. She sighed, twirling a lock of hair around her finger. “Whatever. What’s so interesting about those books you read anyway?”

“Stop trying to change the subject,” Félix said, placing his bookmark in his book and setting it down so that he could push her textbook back towards her and pick her pencil up where it had fallen on the floor. 

“I’m not, technically,” Chloe said, sticking her nose up and pointing a finger to the cover of his book. “I mean, you read those books in English, right? Not French? So what’s so good about it?”

Félix looked at her finger and then down at his book. “Nothing,” he said, and his cheeks turned red.

Chloe blinked in surprise. “Are you blushing right now?”

“Of course not!” Félix snapped, but his face only reddened further.

“Oh, my God, you totally are!” she said, and she laughed hard in his face just because she knew it would piss him off.

“Whatever,” Félix said, grabbing her textbook and pulling it toward him. “I’m going to check your translations so far.”

“Wait, nonono don’t-”

“Too late,” he replied, already scowling down at her mediocre translations. Chloe bit the inside of her cheek, looking down at Félix’s book. She squinted at the title and set it to memory, just to make fun of him for it later.

  
  


\---

  
  


_ Pride and Prejudice. _

That’s what Félix’s book was called. It was by some lady named Jane Austen who died, like, a hundred years ago, and it was a romance novel.

A romance novel.

Chloe stared at her phone screen.

Félix read romance novels.

  
  


\---

  
  


Chloe picked at the stem of her mechanical pencil, staring at Félix as he read his romance novel. It wasn’t  _ Pride and Prejudice  _ anymore, but it was written by that same lady - Jane Austen. Chloe recognized the name.

Félix’s face didn’t betray any emotion at all as he read; he was perfectly smooth and expressionless, except for maybe a little furrow in his eyebrows for concentration. You never would’ve been able to guess that he was reading about, like, falling in love and proposing and all that. It struck Chloe then, for some strange reason, that Félix was kinda hot. 

He looked a lot like Adrien, of course, but like Adrien in sharper focus. His jawline was a little more angular, his nose a little straighter, his skin a little paler, his hair a little longer. Adrien was cute. Félix was hot.

“What are you staring at?” Félix asked, eyes not leaving his book, and Chloe startled, eyes snapping back down to her textbook.

“A lame jerk,” Chloe replied smoothly. “Thanks for asking. Oh, and by the way, what the hell is a participle?”

“You’ve asked me that at least twelve times  _ this week.” _

“And it makes less sense each time. Try harder.”

Félix sighed, marking his place with a bookmark and leaning forward, explaining again what a participle was as he pointed to lines in her textbook with his long pointer finger. Chloe looked up at his face, at the dusting of pale freckles across the bridge of his nose and the fan of his platinum eyelashes against his cheeks.

“You aren’t listening,” he said. He was looking straight at her.

“No, I’m not,” she said, holding his gaze. She grinned. “I’m too busy thinking about  _ Pride and Prejudice.” _

He sat back in his seat, pale cheeks burning red. “Shut up.”

“I just think it’s so  _ romantic,”  _ Chloe gushed mockingly, and his cheeks burned brighter. She was having the time of her life.

“Fine. Figure out what a participle is by yourself.”

“Wait, no, I actually really need you to explain that to me again,” she said, dropping the act, and he looked her over, like he was trying to see if she was hiding a joke under her hair, or something. And then he sighed, opening his mouth to start his participle spiel again.

“It was pretty good, I guess,” Chloe said before he could start, and he closed his mouth, raising an eyebrow.  _ “Pride and Prejudice.  _ I read it. In French, of course.”

“You read it?” Something changed in his face, a little something. 

“Yeah,” she said with a shrug and feeling her cheeks start to heat up. “I mean, I had to figure out what you found so riveting when I, the hottest girl in the country, was sitting in front of you.”

He scoffed, rolling his eyes, but he was still blushing, a little bit. And it looked like there was a smile hiding behind his lips. “It’s better in English.” He stopped, squinting at her. “You’re trying to get off topic so I won’t look at your translation.”

“That’s utterly ridiculous,” Chloe said, hiding her translation with her arm. 

_ “Chloe,” _ he said, and it sounded like he started saying her name with a reprimand but midway through all of that cold exterior crumbled into a laugh. They both stared at each other in mutual surprise. Félix cleared his throat. “Hand it over,” he said, holding out his hand.

“Can’t we just talk about  _ Pride and Prejudice?”  _ she asked, her voice a little unsteady. Her heart was beating weirdly fast.

“No,” he replied, managing to grab her translation and staring down at it. “And think about what a participle is because you’re going to explain it to me after I finish looking this over.”

Chloe groaned, plopping her head in her hands and decidedly  _ not  _ thinking about participles. She thought about the way Félix looked when he blushed, instead. Cute.

When she looked over at him, Félix was staring somewhere to the left of her worksheet, and he was smiling. As soon as he caught her looking, he pinched his lips together and glared down at her translation.

She kept her eyes on him, and when he glanced up at her, she smiled at him. 

He smiled back.

“Tell me what a participle is,” he said.

“Oh, screw you, jerkwad,” she replied.

They were still smiling at each other.

**Author's Note:**

> have i ever written feloe before? no. did i get carried away? absolutely. 
> 
> it was just so fun to make fun of felix for being a lame nerd i mean can you blame me. also i based felix's appearance on what i think he should look like because what he looks like in canon is, like, not it. also fizzyarts' realistic redraw of him probably had a hand in that (if you haven't seen their realistic redraws of various mlb characters i highly encourage you to go find them i won't link them here because it's 4:48am and im lazy but seriously go find them they're fantastic)
> 
> anyway goldensmilingbird i hope you enjoyed reading this!! and anyone else who read this i also hope you enjoyed reading this that would be pretty cool
> 
> thanks for reading happy new year ily goodnight


End file.
